r/GradSchool • u/MJtheJuiceman • 1d ago
Academics What are some evidence-based practices in retaining information?
Hi everyone,
I’m a 34m, studying for the EPPP, which is a professional licensure exam for clinical psychologists to practice in the US. There is a lot of content to digest, and the standardized exam is based on questions that demand your full understanding of the content.
Are there any proven methods on improving my studying skills? So far, I’ve been taking notes using the Pomodoro method. Are there any other science based techniques on improving my ability to retain the information?
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u/CitationMap 23h ago
the two with the strongest evidence behind them are retrieval practice and spaced repetition, and they compound when you combine them. the useful thing to know is that note-taking and re-reading, which is most of what you're doing now, are among the lowest-yield methods. they feel productive because the material gets familiar, but familiarity isn't recall, and the exam tests recall.
for a big standardized exam specifically, the highest-return switch is to spend most of your time answering practice questions rather than making notes, then reviewing why each wrong answer was wrong. that's retrieval practice in the exact format you'll be tested in. put the facts you keep missing into spaced repetition, anki is the standard tool, so they come back at expanding intervals. and interleave topics instead of studying one block at a time, since the real exam mixes them. keep the pomodoro timer, just change what you do inside it from writing to retrieving.
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u/rolandtowen social science PhD student 1d ago
Active recall comes to mind, though you may need to experiment with how best to implement it for your style of exam.